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BCTE Released Free


Supreme Cmdr
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I am in the process of uploading the last secure build of the BCTE module to the site. The file is 18MB and just started uploading.

Assuming that all goes well, it should be available at the link below in about 2hrs from the time of this post. I am using a slow uplink line so its chugging along at an average of 3.0 KB/s.

I will formerly announce it tomorrow because am not going to be around to babysit the upload.

In the meantime, I extracted the readme and uploaded it separately. You can read that while you wait.

www.3000ad.com/demo/bctereadme.txt

www.3000ad.com/demo/bcte-test.zip (18MB)

www.3000ad.com/demo/bctemanual.zip 145K

[This message has been edited by Supreme Cmdr (edited 08-08-2000).]

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HURK!

*Collapses dead on the ground*

Didididideioje

Coherent sentences.. coherent sentences...

HEE HEE GO CABLE MODEM GO HAHAHAHA

*Smacks self in face in an attempt to calm down*

Okay............. calmness.... I'll.. just.. start... reading the readme.. now..... hee hee........... I'm.. calm..... perfectly............. calm...

EDIT: Just screwed around with this sucker. It went a bit sluggish, "tripping out" every few seconds. I clipped through walls. The character model in external view looked slightly whacky, and it was a little difficult to get around. But DAMN! To think that I'll be running and gunning with those weapons on Mars come the end of this year.. and considering what's in there so far, I'm impressed! Thanks for releasing this SC, it's nice to see what you had planned for this game.

------------------

Cmdr. Parias

Spectre Fleet

Chief Engineer, Starstation Destiny

ICV-Galatae

Staff member at HardNews

"Next time you're passing by and feel like dropping in, keep passing by untill you get to a river, and THEN drop in." -Jake Logan

[This message has been edited by Parias (edited 08-08-2000).]

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I'm 17 and I've been working in a software development company for 2 years, I got a hoard of friends who are great programmers... half of em are mensa material, learn REAL fast. We are dedicated and hard workers.

I'd be honoured if you'd let me undertake the completion of the project. Already got a team assembled, just need the SC's permission.

------------------

Cmdr. Hidama Hasaki

GCV Kurai

1st Squadron, SIN Wing

Stationed, Starstation Wrath

you might as well stay and fight, because if you run, you will only die tired

ICQ 28215391, GMT-5

=Wraith Fleet=

[This message has been edited by Cmdr Hidama (edited 08-08-2000).]

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I'd need an email, containing names and details of this rag-tag crew. I need names, addresses, tel numbers, email addresses, skills, tools used, employment/school details etc.

I don't plan on handing over source code to a bunch of weenies. Some folks here, have made promises in the past, that they couldn't keep. So, my confidence is kinda stretched thin on account of that.

And if I'm impressed and do hand over the source code, after one month, if I'm impressed with the progress, I'll provide details on how to hook BCTE into BCM seamlessly.

While you're at it, just make sure your buddies know that this will be a hobby product and not for profit etc.

You will all be required to sign an NDA.

The third-party engine comes with the source code (good luck) a level editor etc. Models can be created in MAX and exported to my .3D file format, using a plugin. The missing items in the current BCTE module are not a lot to be honest. You guys would need to create models, finish the levels, put in the bot AI and pathfinding, multiplayer (the engine already has that built-in), level swapping etc. But mostly, you'd have to fix all the engine problems including collision detection, stairstepping, optimizations etc. It used to support 3Dfx Glide at one point, then that got broken and I abandoned it.

Below is the last TODO list. It includes issues that I am aware of, but does not include internal engine issues.

code:


==============================================================================

TO-DO LIST

Last revision: 03/18/00

==============================================================================

* = fixed

[ENGINE]

1* Check all sentient actor collision detect functions, including sentient to

sentient and sentient to world collisions

2 Full weapon linking with ability to holster second rifle to back holster as

well as other weapons to the body area they are attached to.

3 Weapon switching and holstering. Any weapon that is holstered using

HideWeapon (*not* WeaponView. This only hides the model from your view) must

be holstered in its appropriate holster. The back holster can only take a

single rifle, so if the player switches the rifle he is holding to use

another weapon, the current rifle is dropped *if* the back holster is not

empty. Other weapons with holsters (knife, pistol), should be holstered when

switched.

4 Replace smoke grenade effect with flash bang (blinding effect) because its

too slow. This renders the entire area around the explosion area, white.

Will need a variable which determines the age of the effect. This way,

one can determine how long to make bots blind for when this grenade goes

off. The dissipation time lapse of the blinding effect should be 30 secs and

controlled via a variable for easy adjustments.

NOTE: Do *not* remove the current smoke particle effect, just comment it out.

5 Full advanced DirectX7 support, including multi-texturing support (already

work-in-progress)

6 Engine speed optimizations. It is getting quite slow and I suspect that it

has to do with inefficient BSP rendering. May need to implement a true PVS

based engine. Also need to look into texture management as well as geometry

culling issues.

7 If you collide with geometry, you get stuck and have to turn or move. Needs

some Quake-type slide function.

8 Intra and inter level spawning using spawn points and turbo shafts

9* Implementation of spcontrol.ini. Allows the population of level with

personnel/intruders based on data passed by BC3K as well as level

switching.

10 Location based spawn points. For NPC entities created in the ship in stand-

alone play. No different from t-portal spawn points, the ability to have

spawn points along corridors and in various rooms (without t-portals) allows

the creation of NPC entities at random, in various locations of the ship.

Since the ability to beam onto someone's ship means you can appear anywhere

(t-portals are for in-ship only), this is the only way to do it without the

player camping near a t-portal waiting for an NPC to appear. These non-

tportal based spawn points will not have any identifiable world markings

whatsoever. Each room or corridor, needs to have several and in

different locations, depending on the size of the room.

11 Entity location saving/loading. For saving/restoring the location of an

entity (eg NPC chasing the player) so that if a level is switched, the

location of all entities in the current level, are saved, so that they can be

restored later if the NPC or player, goes back to said level. This would also

be the case if an NPC is chasing the player and he enters a t-portal which

causes a level switch. eg from deck1a to deck1b. The NPC would need to be

removed from deck1a and his location restored in deck1b when loaded.

Naturally, we need a state indicator in the NPC which determines

whether he was in pursuit or not. If not, there is no need to relocate the

NPC on deck1b.

This issue also needs to address the ability for NPCs to traverse decks

without causing a level switch (only the player can do that). In that, NPCs

should be able to leave the current deck area, eg deck1a and go to another,

eg deck1b. The NPC would need to be removed from deck1, the data stored in

memory, and if deck1b ever comes into scope, all entities in memory, that are

tagged as being on that deck, need to be restored. This way, NPCs can flee

decks during combat and boost the game processing. It would be horrendous to

have 10 engineers cowering in a corner during a skirmish.

[AI]

1 Implementation of Bot pathfinding, behavioral & combat AI, as well as the

ability to use/discard/switch/pickup/dispense weapons etc. Have to use the

the default hostile bot (uses a different cmdr skin) currently implemented,

until the other models are done. We particularly need them to be able to

dynamically move around the ship (intra/inter deck travel) instead of being

in one place all the time. Especially during combat engagement. We want

all friendly NPCs to vacate an area (the deck if possible) during combat, in

order to keep the processing requirements down.

2 Implementation of basic movement scripting for NPC personnel so that they do

something in their respective locations. For instance, an engineer would move

from console to console, hide or leave room during combat etc.

3 Implementation of simple Bot commands for player control (list provided when

ready) of marines. These will be either via direct commands (target the

marine and send the command) or via a menu list.

4 Ability for NPC to trigger doors/switches

[GAMEPLAY]

1 Ability to drop and pickup items (weapons/ammo) from world (needs

DropWeapon implementation).

2 Knife throw (mode 2) (see spmanual for exact specs)

3 Implement random ammo on visible dead sentient, walking over it adds ammo

to your available slots. Ammo clips are not visible in the world, only

dropped weapons are, so, no 3d models for them are required.

4 VHU unit completion. Ability to remove from model (see manual for

specs) when the player takes it off. When removed, it just disappears

because it does not have a holster. Also, please read the spmanual.doc

file for notes on how the VHU operates and what features are suppressed

when the VHU is toggled OFF (removed).

5 Main menu, in-game config menu and weapon station menu implementation

6 Placement and smartsolid activation of weapon stations (requires menu) for

weapon dispensing. Note: Since the weapon stations need to be Smartsolids in

order for them to 'do something', we may have to implement them as .box

models so that they can be placed in their locations. Unless of course we

find a way to make the .3D counterparts, intelligent. Of course, we still

have rendering support for both .box and .3d models, so, we have choices.

[bUG FIXES]

1* Cleanup the dead sentient fades: remove their equipment when they die

2* LF extends beyond meter extents when you die (its probably going negative)

3 Fix random lockup on exit (seems window doesn't close unless clicked on in

the taskbar on some machines. This doesn't happen all the time.

4 Fix 3DFX crash bug in Glide renderer

Here is what I think is going on. When Geo's glide renderer runs out of

texture memory, it fails to handle the situation properly. OR, because BC's

character/weapon textures are loaded later in the game startup, they are

being evicted or invalidated.

I lowered the number of textures being bound and the crash went away so its

somewhere in the allocation routines I'm fairly certain.

Anyway, we probably won't be shipping with Glide, but it would be nice to

have this fixed, just in case the Glide code turns up being faster than

Direct3D 7

5 Fix Banshee texture issues under D3D. (driver problem?).

The Direct3D drivers for Voodoo2 and Banshee are nearly identical, the

rendering core is identical on these 2 chipsets BUT the Banshee has only ONE

texture unit. Depending on what release the target machine has, the driver

may report back (incorrectly) that a Banshee card has 2 texture stages in

terms of binding textures to memory:

In the see :

The flag D3DDEVCAPS_SEPARATETEXTUREMEMORIES in

D3DDEVICEDESC7::dwDevCaps

In the texture load/binding code, see: DDSURFACEDESC2::dwTextureStage being

set for lightmap textures for Voodoo2... this is likely happening for Banshee

as well, *this* is likely the problem.

In short, in order to do multi-texture on the Voodoo2, you need to specify

the texture stage as 1 (not 0) for LIGHTMAPS, but I think the Banshee drivers

are miss-reporting causing the lightmaps to be loaded in the stage 1 even

tho Banshee can't support this. Latest reference drivers from 3dfx may even

correct this (most IHV aren't updating their specific card drivers cause the

product is old)!

6 Collision detect fails and still allows character to disappear into walls

7 Jerky movement when using MouseLook. Seems as if screen pauses before being

updated, resulting in jerky movement not so evident when using the keyboard

look equivalents in some cases.

A lot of this was fixed up when we sync'd to refresh the Direct3D buffer flip.

A lot of this percieved lag is when the

PVS determines that large amount of the scene are coming into view, and its

binding a boat load of texture data (behold the dreaded texture thrash).

Many engines 'pre-cache' to reduce this hit, simply by iterating through

every texture in the level, and binding it once, just to let Direct3D

straighten itself out. I'm fairly certain we really want to do this.

8* If Sentient collides with geometry in mid-anim playback, the animation loops

continuously. This can be reproduced by jumping into geometry. The jump anim

will continue to play unless another anim is started.

9* The ability to run+jump in order to breach some distance, does not work.

This means that when you jump, you remain 'in place' without moving forward,

even if you were running or walking. The former should increase the jump

distance, but doesn't.

10*Problem with Jump animation looping if you jump until you get tired.


[This message has been edited by Supreme Cmdr (edited 08-08-2000).]

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I'll gather the info and send you an e-mail ASAP

------------------

Cmdr. Hidama Hasaki

GCV Kurai

1st Squadron, SIN Wing

Stationed, Starstation Wrath

you might as well stay and fight, because if you run, you will only die tired

ICQ 28215391, GMT-5

=Wraith Fleet=

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Guest Commander Hamblin

How do we use the turbolift? I tried using the use key (enter), but that didn't do anything. I've tried everything I can think of, and I've looked all through the manual, but it doesn't say how. confused.gif

------------------

COMMANDER JAMES HAMBLIN

ORION FLEET

GALATEA EXPLORATION WING

GALATEA EXPLORATION WING COMMANDER

GCV GALATEA.

www.orion-hq.fsnet.co.uk

"For I dip't into the future, far as human eyes could see. Saw the vision of the world and all the wonder that would be..."

Good work, Commander. In the future, if I have any questions about mating behaviour, I'll know where to go - Captain Kathryn Janeway.

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Guest aramike01

Someone please explain to me why all of a sudden the mindless drone of the work day seems to be dragging along so much longer than it was before?

------------------

Cmdr. Michael Kristophers

Spectre Fleet

Commanding Officer, Spectre StarStation

ICV-Intrepid

"You won't get the Purple Heart hiding in a foxhole!"

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Quote from the readme file:

quote:

This version has everything working, with the exception of the Bots (though if

you use the B key, you will spawn a non-moving bot who fires and who you can

also fire at. Be warned that he will be spawned at your level start location,

so, move away first), teams as well as automatic level switching (stepping

into a t-shaft would normally take you to the destination level).

Answer your question Hamblin? smile.gif Although there ARE a few other level files I spotted.. according to the info in the /docs folder, they can be loaded by passing down the -level parameter onto the exe. So like, nab a level name from- ah hell, I'm too tired to explain, look at the file in the /docs dir smile.gif

------------------

Cmdr. Parias

Spectre Fleet

Chief Engineer, Starstation Destiny

ICV-Galatae

Staff member at HardNews

"Next time you're passing by and feel like dropping in, keep passing by untill you get to a river, and THEN drop in." -Jake Logan

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Dang, now get get back to he crib - three hours to go - and begin the lengthy download process biggrin.gif - one that I look forward to.

and Hamblin - RTFD The answer to ye question I found in the readme.txt file just as Parais quoted.

... I wonder if M/P will work? Don't give the answer - I will RTFD and discover it meself biggrin.gif

and if it do work ... Rattler, Parais, Akira, and anybody else consider yourself challenged.

TTFN

------------------

Commander Gallion

GCV Graf Spee

*1st Squadron, *Corsair Wing

Stationed, *Starbase Cerberus

"Run Silent, Run Deep"

ICQ# 29486270, EST (GMT-5)

=Wraith Fleet=

Second in Command, Wraith Fleet

Bushi of the Dragon Council

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If Parias read the bctemanual.doc file, he should know that there is no multiplayer either.

For convenience and for those sitting around waiting for the 18MB download, I've added the link to the .doc file in my first message.

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Yup, I already tore through it at 2:30 AM last night smile.gif

------------------

Cmdr. Parias

Spectre Fleet

Chief Engineer, Starstation Destiny

ICV-Galatae

Staff member at HardNews

"Next time you're passing by and feel like dropping in, keep passing by untill you get to a river, and THEN drop in." -Jake Logan

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Downloading now, and yes I RTFD. Bummer, no M/P. That be Ok though. Consider yeself lucky Vorpal.

TTFN

------------------

Commander Gallion

GCV Graf Spee

*1st Squadron, *Corsair Wing

Stationed, *Starbase Cerberus

"Run Silent, Run Deep"

ICQ# 29486270, EST (GMT-5)

=Wraith Fleet=

Second in Command, Wraith Fleet

Bushi of the Dragon Council

[This message has been edited by Gallion (edited 08-08-2000).]

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Guest Commander Hamblin

Actually, I already read that, and no, it didn't answer my question. All it said was that all the features were in the game, and that the t-shaft would automatically take you to your destination. Then, how come it doesn't? Or, how do you enter your destination so that it automatically takes you there? Forgive me, I'm just a little confused here. smile.gif

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Hamblin, read it closer:

quote:

This version has everything working, with the exception of the Bots (yadda yadda), teams as well as automatic level switching (stepping

into a t-shaft would normally take you to the destination level).

Were you hanging aroud my radioactive garden gnomes too long again or something? smile.gif

------------------

Cmdr. Parias

Spectre Fleet

Chief Engineer, Starstation Destiny

ICV-Galatae

Staff member at HardNews

"Next time you're passing by and feel like dropping in, keep passing by untill you get to a river, and THEN drop in." -Jake Logan

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Guest aramike01

Parias, those foolish garden gnomes took ate my dinner. They are *so* dead! biggrin.gif

------------------

Cmdr. Michael Kristophers

Spectre Fleet

Commanding Officer, Spectre StarStation

ICV-Intrepid

"You won't get the Purple Heart hiding in a foxhole!"

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Gallion... I *AM* lucky, and skilled... bad combo for others... ;)

Walking around inside the BC was very interesting. If Cmdr Hidama and his crew comes through it would be cool to see some of the skilled people here work out the interiors of other ships as well. They would have to be officialy approved through the SC for corect architecture and content but as a community we could build up the interiors of other vessels. I don't know if that's outside of the scope of what can be done with that engine but it would be awesome to see happen.

Good idea? Bad idea? Insane?? =)

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Building the ships is not the problem. Its getting past the issues in the engine and level building editors, that is.

But, before anyone starts thinking about building other ships, they'd better learn enough to finish the current ship and code.

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It's not looking too good here, I'm having trouble contacting/gaining enough people (it IS the summer)

and I sure as hell can't do it with the people I DO have already. I may have to retract my request...

frown.gif and I was so excited too!

sorry all

but if anyone else wants to try it, I'd be more than happy to join in!

------------------

Cmdr. Hidama Hasaki

GCV Kurai

1st Squadron, SIN Wing

Stationed, Starstation Wrath

you might as well stay and fight, because if you run, you will only die tired

ICQ 28215391, GMT-5

=Wraith Fleet=

[This message has been edited by Cmdr Hidama (edited 08-09-2000).]

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Im curious SC.. Would you 'have' to use the engine you have already created for BCTE, or could you create a new one, and incorprate it? I understand that if you created a new engine just for this game, it wouldnt have multiplayer capability, but as far as I understand, it should work with single player.

Would it work?

In my spare time, I mess around developing games using DirectX 7, but never got anything off the ground, due to lack of other peoples intrest, but I would love to work on this.

So would an diffrent engine work, providing you use the same method of exchanging data between BCME and BCTE??

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Guest Commander Hamblin

*Reads it closer*

OHHHHHHHHH, RIGHT!!! Sorry, my eyes aren't what they once were, lol! I swear, I'm going blind in my old age! I think I'm going blind, senile, impatient, insane...man, I wonder where I'll spend my retirement, in a mental institution? biggrin.gif

------------------

COMMANDER JAMES HAMBLIN

ORION FLEET

GALATEA EXPLORATION WING

GALATEA EXPLORATION WING COMMANDER

GCV GALATEA.

www.orion-hq.fsnet.co.uk

"For I dip't into the future, far as human eyes could see. Saw the vision of the world and all the wonder that would be..."

Good work, Commander. In the future, if I have any questions about mating behaviour, I'll know where to go - Captain Kathryn Janeway.

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Haha, don't worry Hamblin, I missed that on the first pass as well.. had to go back and read it closer before I got too confused smile.gif

------------------

Cmdr. Parias

Spectre Fleet

Chief Engineer, Starstation Destiny

ICV-Galatae

Staff member at HardNews

"Next time you're passing by and feel like dropping in, keep passing by untill you get to a river, and THEN drop in." -Jake Logan

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Well, it's a shame but this is something I'm going to look forward to playing around with when I get back home. Good luck to anyone who tries to get it completed.

------------------

Cmdr. Ben Zwycky

GCV Svoboda, ISS08

Adjutant to the Fleet Commander

ISS Fleet Recruiting Officer

Director, CIOPS Directorate of Training and Administration

Initiate - Order of Jade Dragon

ISS Fleet Homepage

GCV Svoboda Homepage

"Nakonec pravda vitezi" (in the end the truth wins)

ICQ:72897748

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